"To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"

Our involvement in “Islamist Killings out there”

I got up to an easy day this morning, had tea and my best-in-the-world cereal that I made myself and was looking forward to an easy day…

Then I logged on to my computer.

Sunday morning bomb at Christian church in Pakistan kills at least 75 PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomb attack on a church killed at least 75 people as parishioners left the building Sunday, officials said, in what is the biggest attack on Pakistan’s Christian community in many years.
Women and children were among the victims of the attack, which took place as a morning service was drawing to a close. The rapidly-rising death toll reached at least 75 within hours of the blast….

Islamist gunmen hold hostages in Kenya siege, 59 dead (Reuters) – Islamist militants were holding hostages on Sunday at a shopping mall in Nairobi, where at least 59 people were killed in an attack by the Somali al Shabaab group…and more than 175 taken to hospitals…

This is sickening news. Religious fervor is so strong among Muslims, especially over the past few decades, that we Muslims feel it is justified to kill anyone who strays off our own tight, boundaries. Such targets are not only Christians and other non-Muslims, such targets are expanding to internecine slaughters as well where people who regard themselves as the most Muslims among people, are killing everyone within their reach, as a way of safeguarding and spreading Islam.

Sunnis are slaughtering Shia and to a much lesser extent, Shia are returning the favor. Muslims are killing people who they deem to be NOT Muslim; Ahmediyya, “Foreigners”, “Occupiers” even Sunnis who happen to be in the same area as the targets and often, even Sunnis who do not belong to the attackers’ limited vision of Muslims.

This went past the realms of resistance a long time ago. Resistance is when people kills soldiers who are occupying their lands, resistance can even be when people attack soldiers who are back in their own home country, but no amount of justifying can make it okay to kill civilians, women and children in the name of resistance, as these people so often do.

In countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia and many others, Imams are taking to describing Islam in extremely limited fashion, declaring all those who are not on such a path, as “Kuffar” (Heretics and Infidels) and deserving of death. Non-Muslims are being targeted for simply practicing their faiths, Shia are being banned from following their faith in public, Ahmediyya are being banned from praying in a Mosque…their own Mosque! to top it all, even when the minorities acquiesce to such brutal demands, the Most Muslim Mulsims are not satisfied, they launch attacks, beating and killing the minorities. The rest of the country looks on silently, not wishing to get into an argument of what constitutes Islam and how these mind-sets have nothing at all, to do with Islam; not wishing to draw the cross-hairs to themselves.

When Pakistan was first established, it had about 25% religious minorities (Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and pagans), this was represented in the flag of the country by the White panel which was 25% od the length of the flag. Today, it is doubtful if there are 5% minorities left in the country, they are flocking to leave for just about anywhere they can go, to get away from the murderous masses and their passive brethren.

We Muslims are as guilty as the murderous “Islamists” (a misleading, false term) because we are too timid to take on the Imams and to so-called, “Scholars” who preach intolerance of the minorities and of other Muslim sects. We Muslims do not have to righteous confidence that comes from God, when He tells us in our hearts, that something that is being said, cannot be right.

We don’t just do it “over there”, we betray our faith and our God right here, in the US as well.

As soon as we have sufficient numbers of Muslims in an area, we decide to build a Mosque and then w e decide to get an imam or a “Islamic scholar”, to lead the congregation. We do not do enough background checking to find out what that imam believes, we just get someone who has the credentials that look good; he has studied Islam in Arabia, in Yemen, in Pakistan and understand Islam; this is the man we want to lead our congregations here. Once the man is here, we listen to his preaching as it gets more and more narrow and again, we sit silently because we are not “scholars” and we have been taught great deference to Islamic “scholars” unless we have such scholarship under our own belts and even then, we sit silently because we do not wish to embarrass him.

Our own misplaced sense of decorum is what is killing our own people…Muslims and non-Muslims.

Today, we have many of our imams teaching from copies of the Quran published in Arabia by the King Fahad Press, called “The Noble Quran” translated by Hilali and Khan. The Arabic portion of “The Noble Quran” is exactly the same as any other Quran; that may not be changed in any sect of Islam, but the translation and the commentary is what is creating the intolerance and the murderous Muslims. I am pretty sure, translations in other languages from this press, are no different in their intolerance and violence; they are in fact, vastly different from all other translations that I have come across and I have come across well over a dozen different translations of the Quran.

Arabia is probably the single greatest source of intolerance and murderous hate towards everybody who is not from one of their own brand of intolerant Islam, Selafists, better known as Wahhabis. Were this brand to remain limited to their own land it would be bad enough, but their wealth and the support they get from the Most Enlightened West (especially the US), allows them to spread their venom among all other Muslim lands. They import massive numbers of Muslims as workers and hammer their brand of intolerance in their unformed minds…people who do not understand Arabic and believe that anything the “Guardians of the Holy Sites” say, must be as if it is coming from God himself. Arabia also pays for the teaching of imams all over the world and again, most of the candidates who go to Arabia study Islam are under-educated sincere people who turn into intolerant monsters after the House of Saud has had its way with them. Thus brainwashed, these people go back to their own countries and lead the intolerance there and the violence is given another boost.

The single biggest boost to the Wahhabi way of thinking was when America determined to fight the Soviet union to the last Afghan back in the 1970s and 1980s. They brought imams to Pakistan to teach the Afghan youth to become most intolerant towards the “Unbeliever” who conveniently, were the occupying Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, after the Soviets left Afghanistan, the Americans abandoned Afghanistan and left it to the tender mercies of the now powerful and numerous, intolerant thinking fanatics who had also established a broad stronghold in Pakistan.

The dragon’s teeth had been very effectively sown. Today what we see is largely the result of the exponential spread of that school of thought.

In Sunni Mosques that are dominated by South Asians (Indians and Pakistanis), they also promote and teach from a book on religious practices called “Bahishti Zewar” (“Heavenly Ornaments”). Written by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, this book is intended for the “education” of young girls and women. While most of it deals with minutiae of mundane issues such as respect for parents, for husband, bringing up children, how to address or write to elders, how to care for the sick etc., there are sections that say the only way to deal with someone who converts out of Islam, is by killing the person if s-he cannot be convinced to return to the fold. To me, it does not matter that 99% of a book is non-violent, just the presence of the one (or more) exhortations to violence is enough to send the entire book to the garbage bin.

Bahishti Zewar teaches young girls and women to be servile and to obey their elders…males especially and to serve the man in their lives, it does little to help young women grow up to be independent human beings who can have careers other than as wives, mothers and housekeepers to their husbands. Okay, if some group wishes to teach that to their girls, I may not like it but it is their prerogative, but NOT when it comes to teaching them violence against the “Kuffar”.

It is the teaching and the passive acceptance of such books (Bahishti Zewar and The Noble Quran) that creates and promotes intolerant and violent thinking, that then creates the climate for the slaughters that we witness almost daily these days.

Over in the “civilized world” of the West, where we Muslims do not kill one another, we create a hostile climate against other sects by calling them “Kuffar” (Heretics and Infidels), by excluding them from our Mosques, by not learning about them and joining them in discussions and the final insult, by banning their dead bodies from our “Muslim” graveyards.

Most of the Muslims who are in the US, are educated and well-to-do…and sadly, too intimidated by “Scholars” to speak out against the subtle hate they teach to their congregations and to their children who attend Sunday schools. As these children grow up, they become more detached form each other based on sectarian differences and some also become more detached from life around them. We are starting to see the divides between Muslims grow as deep and wide as they are back in to Old countries, although, without the violence. The elder generation…people lime myself…are left standing and gaping at what is happening, not having the moral courage to take the stand they need to take, within their own congregational communities while the imams are free to teach intolerance of the “Kuffar” and other Muslim sects, often with the support of the leaders of the Mosques.

Nobody feels empowered to stop the flow of such thinking and nobody feels the moral strength to take on “scholars” and imams.

You and I are in agreement. The issue is not with Islam but with those who use Islam to destroy Humanity and with those who have the power to stop all this but prefer to gorge themselves with stolen goods and money, while the mayhem continues.

About

Blogger Jafar “Jeff” Siddiqui is an American Muslim living in WA.. USA.

He grew up in the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (North-West Frontier) Province and has maintained close contacts in Pakistan.

He is a member of American Muslims of Puget Sound and is a human rights activist. He is involved with movements for inter-faith understanding. He has contributed articles for a textbook on terrorism, used by US law-enforcement agencies. He has also presented discussions and written article, on the Indo-Pakistan hostilities and their impact on Afghanistan.; he writes articles and gives lectures on Civil Rights, American Foreign Policy, on Islam, on current affairs including events in the Middle East, South and Central Asia. His works have been published in various print media. He also gives commentaries on radio and TV on these subjects.

Occasionally, I use the term “Jihad” in my articles, as the action needed to help make changes to better the ills of society. I often get feedback in which people worry more about my use of the word “Jihad”, than they do about the injustice about which I wrote; some wonder why I would use such a charged word among non-Muslims.

I intentionally use “Jihad”, because I want to jolt Muslims AND non-Muslims; “Jihad” cannot and must not become de-legitimized just because some people do not care to understand the true meaning of a sacred term and decide to associate it with terrible things.

“Jihad” springs from the Arabic “Jhd” which means “struggle”; “Jihad” means the act of struggle, “Mujahid” (Plural, Mujahideen) is someone who is doing “Jihad”.

At the core (the highest level), it is the duty of every Muslim to struggle against the basic negative predispositions we all have as humans…greed, envy, jealousy, rage, deceit, theft, murder etc.

At the next level, it is the duty of every Muslim to fight against the ills that beset Mankind…hunger, disease, homelessness, illiteracy, injustice, lack of water, pollution etc.,

At the least important level, Muslims are required to fight those who attack us AFTER we have exhausted all other efforts towards peaceful resolution. Even then, if peace is at hand, even at mid-battle, one has to stop and accept terms that are just and preserve the dignity of all parties.

I would imagine these are things that every person needs to subscribe to, not just Muslims.

Yet, there is a growing body of opinion in the non-Muslim West, that “Jihad” can ONLY be equated with murder and mayhem and thus, anyone using the word, can be presumed to be associated with supporting murder and mayhem.

I would suggest that supporters of the body of opinion that would like to taint “Jihad”, are people who consider themselves at “War!” with Islam, Muslims and Arabs. They may be a growing number of people, but they are wrong and it would be wrong for Muslims to lend credence to this opinion by shying away from “Jihad” in word, or in action.

Not so long ago, the Jewish organization ADL, launched an attack on some Muslim groups because the Muslims were wearing the Muslim Affirmation… “Shehada” (“There is no God but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet”) on their headbands and the ADL said that the Shehada stood for terrorism.

There are a growing number of bigots who state that Islam’s holy book, the Quran, is a symbol of evil and violence.

What should Muslims do? Abandon the Shehada and the Quran?

Some may say that we should just not use the Shehada on headbands, why not? Either the Affirmation (Shahada) is sacred or it is not; if it is sacred, then wherever it is used, as long as the use is not profane, is also sacred. If the Shehada is used in a profane manner, then the reflection is not upon the Shehada, but on the abuser.

Hitler took the Swastika as his symbol and today, it strikes fear and revulsion in the hearts of many, especially Jews. However, the Swastika is thousands of years old and among Hindus, the “Savas Tika” (“Peace sign”) is a holy symbol, it is used to adorn temples and used by Hindus at almost every occasion…it can be clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Should the Hindus be asked to abandon the Savas tika as a symbol?

If we dared to make such an absurd demand, we would be laughed off the stage.

The Star of David strikes fear and revulsion among millions of Palestinian men, women and children; should the Jews be asked to abandon the Star of David as their symbol?

I am betting millions of Bosnian Muslims shudder a little when they see a Crucifix, or the Christian Orthodox cross, because of the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs and the Croats in the name of Christianity in the 1990s; should those symbols be cast aside?

The principle of “use it or lose it” is quite valid here. If we retreat for any reason, we are acknowledging that our sacred and holy terms or symbols are sometimes themselves, evil. Once we give that ground, then we can no longer use our Savas Tikas, our Crucifixes or our terms…THEN, the bad guys have truly won.

I believe that as reasoned and rational people, we cannot allow ourselves to fall victim to populist bigotries. We must look at what the symbol actually stands for, rather than associate it with the negative events that were tied to it by evil people; we must be able to differentiate between Nazi Swastikas on one hand, and symbols and words that are sacred, on the other.

Jihad; it is a sacred duty for every Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu…for every human being of good will.